Monday, March 10, 2008

First the quilts. Photographing quilts can be really hard to get the real effect, and it was quite dark. I only took a very limited number, and then decided that the ones on her portfolio page would be better then anything I could take.

So I'll repeat the photo from before:

I didn't spend as long as I could have looking at the quilts, because I was too busy talking to her friends.

Her cat was on display, and it was extremely effective. There is a textural distinction between the cat and the background. It was almost three dimensional. Another dimensional quilt was 'Autumn', with the leaves that she has shown on her blog. Some of the leaves are stitched down only in part, so they could flap around in a wind. The quilting was excellent too with the shapes of leaves quilted into the background. It's the quilt on the right of the picture.

On the nudes, I'd talk about the effect of "negative space", if I was entirely sure what it meant and it didn't sound too pretentious. But what Ferret has done is take a large background space and not entirely cover it with picture, just enough to have the suggestion of a hand, or a leg.

Her Union Jack Quilt was on display. It was interesting listening to the comments: people recognised it as being punk related, whereas the commentators at the Festival of Quilts where it was on display, didn't get it. (Or at least the retired ones who go on a Friday didn't.)

Ferret has also got some really nice friends. Sometimes you meet someone new and they have done the same sort of things that you have done and like the same sort of things you like. Ferret's friends were like that. We talked about Charles Babbage and zombie attacks and gravitational lenses and Gary Gygax and the Science Museum. And about other things along those lies.

To summarise, I had a really enjoyable evening, and the quilts are worth seeing.